Kakashi Noir
by suchsmallthings
Summary: The old geezer was right, though. Kakashi can't stop being a ninja, even when he tries.


Being ninja isn't like being a teacher. Or even like a cop, or any old job. I dunno. Washing windows. It ain't no nine-to-five. You can't take off your ninja hat after work and be on your merry little way. Hell, there ain't no job description in the world like it. You have to commit. And when you commit, you must co_mmit._

Point is, you decide to be ninja, you ain't nothing else for the rest of your life.

That's what the old man told him when he was standing outside of the Academy when he was six. The Old Man. That's what he always remembered him as. No one seemed to know his name, even when he'd asked about it later. The Old man was old. The Old Man wore an old, tattered black robe and carried around an old, tattered black cane and smiled an old, tattered black smile. He had exactly three visible teeth.

He was always around the Academy. Whenever Kakashi saw him, he would be sitting in the shade, chewing some old Konoha Leaf brand tobacco. He had said these words to Kakashi when he had finished spitting out a slab. Then he had reached into a fold in his dusty old kimono and took out the tobacco package. The Konoha Leaf symbol on it was embossed in gold. He got out a small knife and flipped it open, then cut himself a generous portion and smiled again, his three yellow teeth all showing, and put it in his mouth. He worked his mouth awhile before settling back down and storing the tobacco in the side of his mouth. There was a bulge on his left cheek made by it, and he made a quick sucking sound.

He'd been a ninja for years but from the looks of him you couldn't tell. They said he'd lost his leg in one of the great wars, but no one knew which one, either. Hell, it could've been the first, for all his wrinkles and hair and liver spots. Now he just hobbled around on his cane and spouted whatever his bitter, senile mind came up with and sat on benches and chewed tobacco.

The geezer was right, though. Kakashi can never stop being ninja, even when he tries.

It's one of those bright, brittle mornings when the sun shines too much and the air's too cold. Kakashi ambles out of his apartment with his trusty little orange Icha Icha book and heads down to the main street. His nose is buried in what he's reading, but that doesn't mean he's really concentrating on it.

Really, Kakashi likes to read. Reading gives him something to do while he gets from one place to another. It keeps him from getting bored when he's training some brats. And every time he has thoughts he'd rather not think about, look! Written porn, the best distraction in the world. Yeah, it's a cheap dirty novel written by one of the most infamous perverts in the city. Yeah, when people see him reading it they automatically assume he is one of the most famous perverts in the city. Unfortunately, the literature young Kakashi picked up at a tender age stuck, and it's about all he _can _stand to read. But Kakashi never professed to holding the moral high ground, or caring what the hell people think about him.

He runs into Kurenai down the road. He sees her out of the corner of his eye, gives her a lazy up-and-down. She's got a face you wouldn't get tired of looking at, even if her eyes are a chilly red. She has one of those kunoichi bodies, all curves and legs. He notes the sway of her hips. Their eyes meet and he doles out a "Hey," and she returns it with a quick little nod, her black curls bouncing.

"Hey, have you seen Asuma?" He attempts to leer at her but the effect is lost somewhat due to his having only one visible eye.

"Can't say that I have."

"The idiot."

"What should I say if I run into him?"

She tells him. Not the least of which is: "He's never going to see me again. And I _mean _it." She flips her hair a bit and continues walking. Kakashi watches her retreating back for awhile before continuing on his way. He shakes his head. _Relationships. _If there was anything that could bring a man down, that's it. Take Asuma. Tell the guy to go knock out a hundred jonin, he comes back in two hours. Tell him to handle a kunai, he cuts some poor bastard to ribbons.

Tell him to take a hike on behalf of his lady, and you end up watching him nurse a bottle of sake in a cheap bar two hours later. He takes a long drag of his cigarette, a habit Kakashi made sure never to pick up himself. "You're lucky, Kakashi," he says distantly, breathing out slowly so the smoke can dissipate. He taps the cigarette with his yellowed fingertips and some ash falls into the tray. It's already been filled. By Asuma.

"Yeah?" says Kakashi, for lack of a better response. He knows he's lucky. Hell, he's lucky to be alive.

"I figure," says Asuma, taking on a very morose tone, "that you're lucky because you don't have a, a, a woman in the world who gives a damn for you. A damn."

Kakashi considers. "You call that lucky?" So maybe he's had a few sips of rice wine too. It's cheap like the bar but he's not really here to enjoy himself and doesn't mind the after-taste. Which reminds him. He takes another shot.

"Yeah." Another drag. This time he exhales fast and the smoke momentarily obscures his face. Then it just mixes in with the smoke from everything else and joins the atmospheric smoke that hangs around the place like a bad oil painting. "You don't have a lady to go back to. You don't have anyone to go back to. You don't have to be held accountable for all the shit you do. You're free. Man, you're free, and you don't have to feel all this…_emotion._"

"Spare me the dramatics, Asuma," says Kakashi, feeling only a little stung by his friend's words. "You're just spoilt because Kurenai's a kunoichi. She understands what it's like. She's only expecting you to do the bare minimum. Like remembering her birthday."

He's been waiting to drop that bomb. And he's not disappointed when Asuma suddenly sits upright with a swear and looks around, panicked.

"She's ninja, all right. Just as vengeful as Orochimaru, at any rate." He coughs then smiles. "Kakashi."

"Yeah."

"You ever wonder what it would be like if…Oh, I don't know. We weren't nin?"

"What?"

"If we weren't shinobi. If we led civilian lives."

Kakashi sighs into his drink, real hard. "Of course I do. Everyone does."

Asuma's eyes find a broken straw of bamboo on the blinds across from them. "I never did. Not until now."

"Well, from someone who _has _wondered for a long time, it's no use thinking about it. We made our choices. Now we have to stand by them." He downs the last of his sake with finality, hinting for his friend to maybe stop with the embarrassingly immature conversation.

Asuma doesn't seem to be able to take the hint. "Heh. If I weren't a ninja I wouldn't have met her."

He adds bitterly, "and if I didn't love her with all my heart I'd pack my bags in a second, and never look back, and not have to feel so damn much."

The next day begins with a grumble and a headache and when Kakashi opens his door he expects everything except the person standing before him.

Sakura.

Being beautiful, as usual.

She's slim. And she's wearing her tight black shorts and beige half-skirt, and that lovely little red vest that has a convenient zipper right in the middle of it. Her eyes look bright and fresh and young. He feels like throwing up on her.

"My, Sakura-chan. This is a surprise." Which it is. A rather unwelcome on, at that.

"Gee, Kakashi, you don't have to sound so enthusiastic to see me." She – no, there's no other word for it- flutters past him and into his living room. He squeezes his eyes shut for a minute before closing the door and turning around to face her.

She's smiling again. Her lips part and shimmer with lip gloss. He wonders what they taste like before reaching over to the table and grabbing an Icha Icha novel. "And how is my most favoritest former-student doing?" he asks, flipping a page. He's gotten to the part where the samurai master finds out that his best student is female.

His most favoritest former-student is, apparently, not doing as well as one would have hoped. "Augh, Kakashi-sensei, it's _impossible. _When I'm not being sent on missions I'm up to here in hospital work, and I hardly ever see Naruto and Sasuke anymore and Lee has been getting really creepy and –"

She turns and looks at him, hard, like it's her first time seeing him. He reads his book as coolly as he can manage. The dojo master challenges his student to a duel and his sword begins to tear off her clothes by degrees.

By degrees, Sakura comes closer to him.

"You've gotten a new scar." Kakashi sighs and puts down his book next to the empty mug of coffee he drank earlier – the cheap stuff, the kind that seem to be pure caffine and nothing else.

He inclines his head. "It's just a scratch – I was distracted by a beautiful cloud formation in battle, and – "

"Shut up, Kakashi, you liar." She smiles, and she looks a little sad. "I told you to come to me after you came back from the mission. I could have healed you." Her voice has gone soft. Then her hand comes up and a single white finger extends to trace the thick scar tissue that has begun to form. Her touch is cool and soothing. "You should have come to me. Why didn't you?" She withdraws her hand and looks at him. She's all dewy looking again. His headache returns.

"I was on my way," he says defensively. "But I needed to help a friend."

"Right," she says, all drawn out.

There's some silence of the awkward kind. She seems like she's waiting for something. Like hell does he have any idea, though.

He picks up his book again (_Her breast-bindings were beginning to give way and she was breathing heavily. But she still stood, shaking and out of breath, as the dojo-master ran towards her. She closed her eyes and waited for her death but instead felt cold steel on the swell of her breast and opened her eyes to find – ). _

"I'll be coming back here tomorrow, and you better be here, Kakashi."

She walks out. The door slams shut behind her. He puts the book down.


End file.
